Internet Freakshow

Cannibal Ring

Internet Freakshow - Cannibal Ring

The last few episodes of Internet Freakshow, I’ve kind of taken it easy on all you. We covered a mysterious commenter who is always posting about key lime pies, one of the first fake internet personas, a visionary who had a hand in the lifestreaming movement, and other pretty innocuous pieces of the history of the internet. But now, let’s dive a little deeper into the disturbing and horrible parts of the web. This episode will not be good for young listeners, so please keep small ears away, and if you’re sensitive to topics like pedophilia and cannibalism, it’s also probably best to turn off this episode.

This is a story about how the internet played a part in both the propagation and the collapse of a large, multinational network of child pornographers.

We know from shows like To Catch a Predator that, sometimes, law enforcement will pose online to bait potential or active predators into a trap. And that’s how this story starts as well. An agent chatted online with a group of people who fantasized about kidnapping, raping, killing, and eating small toddlers and infants. A man named Robert Diduca, a hotel manager, husband, and father of 3 children, went by the name “Babytodd” online. He chatted with informants and other members of this pedophile ring, where he admitted to raping and abusing young children. Agents were able to trace the chats he conducted to the hotel he managed. During a chat with the informant, Diduca turned his webcam on to masturbate. They were able to get images of his face. They used these images in a reverse image search to find the man’s identity, only to find his photo on a website for DeLorean owners. There are very few DeLorean owners, so digging through DMV records to find Diduca proved to be quite easy.

After his arrest, police confiscated Diduca’s computer and found over 27,000 child pornography images on SD cards. For his part in the pedophile ring, Diduca was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

But before his arrest, at the FBI agent’s request, Diduca sent him a very explicit photo of a young boy being raped. This one photo was picked apart meticulously and ultimately was the beginning of the end for this online ring of pedophile cannibals.

This particular photo had an 18-month-old, half-dressed and clinging to a stuffed bunny. The photo was forwarded to Interpol, an agency not bound by national jurisdictions. A Dutch investigator immediately pointed out that the stuffed bunny was a character known as Miffy, who is featured in many stories in Dutch children’s books. The orange sweater was traced to a shop in Amsterdam, which had only sold a small handful of these particular sweaters.

When images of this young child started circulating in local media to help find the perpetrator, it did not take long for the parents to be contacted and arrests made. Robert Mikelsons, a 27-year-old daycare worker who cared for the boy, was arrested. On his personal computer they found thousands and thousands of images similar to the original bunny image. The victims in these images ranged from the oldest, a 4-year-old, to the youngest which was a shocking 19 days old.

Mikelsons confessed to raping over 80 children during his time as a daycare worker. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, then indefinite psychiatric commitment.

Mikelsons was the second domino to fall, but he was far from the last. The 2 computers confiscated from Mikelsons and Diduca turned out to be a goldmine for investigators, leading to dozens more suspects over several continents.

At this point in our story, 2 people have been arrested and thousands of images obtained, along with several dozen more suspects and leads from the confiscation of the computers. The dominoes were starting to fall and police were dedicated to finding as many of these perpetrators as possible.

Following the thread of chats and images from the confiscated computers, they found images created by a man named Michael Arnett, of Kansas. One of these photos Arnett had created was of a naked 2-year-old boy in a roasting pan inside of an oven. The chats that Arnett participated in were extremely, extremely disturbing. He fantasized about abducting, raping, killing, and eating children. For Arnett, he thankfully did not fulfill his cannibalistic fantasies as far as we know, but he did confess to abusing 3 boys. All were identified and found alive thankfully.

Another 4 men were arrested after reading transcripts on Arnett’s computer fantasizing about killing and eating children. One of these men was a man named Ronald Brown, a puppeteer in Florida who had made some appearances on children’s television, like a show called Joy Junction. I’m going to play a clip from one of those episodes now. While the voices sound identical, this is actually meant to show a conversation between Brown and his ventriloquist dummy.

Pretty chilling conversation in light of what ultimately happened with Brown.

Arnett and Brown would chat via Yahoo Messenger, and fantasize together about killing and eating children. One of these transcripts reads:

Brown: He would made a fine Easter Feast Arnett: yes, his thighs and butt cheeks would be fantastic for easter Brown: I agree. You could be spending today parting him out, getting a pan ready for the butt and thighs Arnett: I would have the time to do it today, if I only had him. I would have been up all night enjoying him. Brown: I’m sure. Telling him about what his last day as a boy will entail. Arnett: I imagine his eyes would just about be ready to bug out. Brown: Wet with tears, so scared and helpless. Arnett: Probably trembling, trying to imagine his body being cut up and eaten. Brown; Thinking of how much it will hurt to be chopped up. Arnett: I can assure him that he won’t feel a thing because he will be dead by then. Brown: his mind not thinking like a big boy anymore, fear reducing him back to the level of a five year old. Terrified and crying. Arnett: Maybe I can tell him that he is a big boy now, and will be able to take it. I could give him a choice on how he wants to go. Brown: that would be nice of you. Smiley emoji. Give him choices, all of which end in him being cut up and eaten.

I know these chats transcripts are long and difficult to read. And these bizarre and twisted fantasies go on for pages and pages and pages, for months.

Arnett and Brown claim these chats are just fantasies and they’d never actually follow through. As we noted in the Lopatka podcast, it’s hard to say “never” or “always” when it comes to sick people like this. Fantasies escalate. While there is no proof of any murder or cannibalism with Brown and Arnett, there is proof of them abusing children.

Brown was sentenced to 20 years on child pornography charges.

Arnett was sentenced to 30 years for his part in the creation and distribution of child pornography.

The arrests of Arnett and Brown led to even more evidence on additional perpetrators. Agents and investigators painstakingly went through the pictures and videos collected, using clues in them to find the abused children. For one video obtained from these computers, they used a TV playing in the background and order of commercials being played to track down a specific time that the video was recorded. The carpet and furniture in the video was tracked back to a hotel in California.

In the background of another photo, they saw a water bottle that, when enhanced, displayed the name of a local swim center. These clues allowed investigators to track down the children and the perpetrators and make more arrests.

As more people in this pedophile ring are arrested and more evidence is collected, it leads to more clues, more victims, and more arrests. The last reference to this case I found was in 2012, and at that point 43 men had been arrested with more arrests expected.

You may listen to this podcast and choose to focus on the negative. The internet allowed a sprawling child pornography ring over several continents with dozens of people participating in producing child porn and fantasizing about even worse crimes. This kind of evil couldn’t spread so quickly without the internet. For me, though, I’m going to focus on the positive. The internet also allowed investigators to find and arrest these psychos. It allowed them to reach out to other agencies and compare notes. To track down that bunny and the shirt that started this house of cards falling down.

Unfortunately, we can’t stop people from using the internet for nefarious purposes. There will always be sickos out there in search of their next victim. We can, however, learn to beat them at their own game, infiltrate their circles, and take down the perpetrators. As a father of 2 small children myself, I’m thankful for the internet and especially the law enforcers who play their own roles in bringing criminals to justice and save lives.

I want to finish this episode by talking a bit about the defenses that these criminals used in court. Diduca claimed his issues started when he was raped as a child by his Boy Scout leader. Most of them said that fantasizing isn’t a crime at all. Most took the defense that child pornography is a victimless crime, and that the true crime is in the creation of the porn, not the distribution. I hope it’s clear that distribution of child pornography is not a victimless crime, and deserves to be punished even if the perpetrators never lay a hand on children.

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Next time on Internet Freakshow, we’ll be doing another episode that is super dark and disturbing... the murder of Bianca Devins. Until next time.